Publications by authors named "Martin Hammond"

Introduction: Black and Hispanic adults are disproportionately burdened by cardiometabolic disorders. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the effectiveness of mobile health technologies to promote disease prevention and self-management among US adults in diverse communities.

Methods: Potential studies were identified using a comprehensive search of the PubMed and EMBASE databases for recent studies published from December 2018 through 2021.

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Background: Pain is prevalent and poorly managed in older adults. Although pain self-management strategies are helpful, adoption and access are limited; thus, technology provides an opportunity for intervention delivery. Mobile health (mHealth) is feasible to use in older adults; however, we have yet to understand the effect of mHealth pain self-management interventions on pain outcomes in older adults.

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In this paper, we explore older adults' experiences moving daily social activities online in a senior independent living community during the early stages (March 2020-June 2020) of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. We present findings of a semi-structured interview study with eight older adult residents where we discuss their needs and how they used technology to support and adapt during the phase of required physical distancing. Our findings suggest that participants felt well supported by their organization and community, and found information and communication technologies (ICTs) that were useful for supporting the transition.

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The increased prevalence of voice search presents opportunities to address consumer challenges accessing online health information. However, it is essential to understand how users' perceptions of voice affect their search processes for health information, concerns, and different scenarios for using voice for health information tasks. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 younger (18-25) and older (60-64) adult participants to understand and compare their perceptions of using voice and text-based search for non-health-related and health-related tasks.

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Intelligent voice assistants (IVAs) such as Amazon Echo and Google Home present a promising opportunity to improve access to consumer health information and resources for older adults. However, researchers know little about older adults' opinions of using IVAs for these potentially critical tasks, particularly those with already limited access. In this paper, we explore older adults' views about IVAs for consumer health and wellness information with the goal of better understanding what they envision as benefits and barriers of using such technology in the future.

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Background: Intelligent assistants (IAs), also known as intelligent agents, use artificial intelligence to help users achieve a goal or complete a task. IAs represent a potential solution for providing older adults with individualized assistance at home, for example, to reduce social isolation, serve as memory aids, or help with disease management. However, to design IAs for health that are beneficial and accepted by older adults, it is important to understand their beliefs about IAs, how they would like to interact with IAs for consumer health, and how they desire to integrate IAs into their homes.

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Ticks transmit more pathogens to humans and animals than any other arthropod. We describe the 2.1 Gbp nuclear genome of the tick, Ixodes scapularis (Say), which vectors pathogens that cause Lyme disease, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, babesiosis and other diseases.

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Purpose: Older adults are at increased risk of adverse drug events due to medication. Older adults tend to take more medication and are at higher risk of chronic illness. Over-the-counter (OTC) medication does not require healthcare provider oversight and understanding OTC information is heavily dependent on a consumer's ability to understand and use the medication appropriately.

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Culex quinquefasciatus (the southern house mosquito) is an important mosquito vector of viruses such as West Nile virus and St. Louis encephalitis virus, as well as of nematodes that cause lymphatic filariasis. C.

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Ensembl (http://www.ensembl.org) integrates genomic information for a comprehensive set of chordate genomes with a particular focus on resources for human, mouse, rat, zebrafish and other high-value sequenced genomes.

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VectorBase (http://www.vectorbase.org) is an NIAID-funded Bioinformatic Resource Center focused on invertebrate vectors of human pathogens.

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Experience-dependent plasticity in adulthood is slower than during development. Previous experience can accelerate adult cortical plasticity. However, the contributions of functional synaptic changes and modifications in neuronal structure to the acceleration of adult cortical plasticity remain unclear.

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We present a draft sequence of the genome of Aedes aegypti, the primary vector for yellow fever and dengue fever, which at approximately 1376 million base pairs is about 5 times the size of the genome of the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae. Nearly 50% of the Ae. aegypti genome consists of transposable elements.

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Neocortical circuitry can alter throughout life with experience. However, the contributions of changes in synaptic strength and modifications in neuronal wiring to experience-dependent plasticity in mature animals remain unclear. We trimmed whiskers of rats and made electrophysiological recordings after whisker cortical maps have developed.

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Background: The genome of Anopheles gambiae, the major vector of malaria, was sequenced and assembled in 2002. This initial genome assembly and analysis made available to the scientific community was complicated by the presence of assembly issues, such as scaffolds with no chromosomal location, no sequence data for the Y chromosome, haplotype polymorphisms resulting in two different genome assemblies in limited regions and contaminating bacterial DNA.

Results: Polytene chromosome in situ hybridization with cDNA clones was used to place 15 unmapped scaffolds (sizes totaling 5.

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VectorBase (http://www.vectorbase.org/) is a web-accessible data repository for information about invertebrate vectors of human pathogens.

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The neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) and its associated glycan polysialic acid play important roles in the development of the nervous system and N-methyl-D-aspartate(NMDA)receptor-dependent synaptic plasticity in the adult. Here, we investigated the influence of polysialic acid on NMDA receptor activity. We found that glutamate-elicited NMDA receptor currents in cultured hippocampal neurons were reduced by approximately 30% with the application of polysialic acid or polysialylated NCAM but not by the sialic acid monomer, chondroitin sulfate, or non-polysialylated NCAM.

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The pore-forming alpha-subunits of large conductance calcium- and voltage-activated potassium (BK) channels are encoded by a single gene that undergoes extensive alternative pre-mRNA splicing. However, the extent to which differential exon usage at a single site of splicing may confer functionally distinct properties on BK channels is largely unknown. Here we demonstrated that alternative splicing at site of splicing C2 in the mouse BK channel C terminus generates five distinct splice variants: ZERO, e20, e21(STREX), e22, and a novel variant deltae23.

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Genome information resources such as Ensembl manage and present DNA sequence and annotation arising from genome projects. Recent developments in the Ensembl system include access to inter-species comparisons at both the genomic and protein sequence levels and improvements to the display of polymorphism data. Users can now display their own data in the context of other annotation.

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Ensembl (http://www.ensembl.org/) is a bioinformatics project to organize biological information around the sequences of large genomes.

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The EnsMart system (www.ensembl.org/EnsMart) provides a generic data warehousing solution for fast and flexible querying of large biological data sets and integration with third-party data and tools.

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Non-viral gene transfer into neurons has proved to be a formidable task. Here, we describe an electroporation-based method that allows efficient and reliable DNA transfer into dissociated neural cells before they are plated and cultured. In hippocampal neural cells derived from either neonatal mouse or embryonic chicken brains, a high transfection rate was already observed 5 h after transfection, and reached 40-80% in 24 h, as monitored by expression of enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP).

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